Stop Living a Reactive Life

God is a Creator. In the beginning, He created, and He continues to create to this moment. Every day He is creating new opportunities for His followers to spread His message. He is never caught off guard or without a plan. Instead of reacting to the freewill decisions of His creation, He instead is spinning new avenues to provide an entirely new way for His plan to be accomplished. He isn’t discouraged by our lack of cooperation or frustrated by our failures.

I see Him moving in constant fluidity, constantly creating throughout history, and never losing sight of the mission at hand. In contrast, we tend to be a reactive people. Instead of collaborating with Him in creating something new, we busy ourselves reacting to what has already been created. If we want to be more like Christ, we’re going to need to stop living a reactive life.

Viktor Frankl said, “God did not create us to live in reaction, but to be co-creators of a meaningful life.” It’s impossible to live a purposeful life if you’re constantly living in a reactive mode. We need to approach each morning in prayer to learn what God wants to create through us this day. If we don’t spend time figuring this out before we begin our day, we never will once we begin to be bombarded by the thousand distractions clamoring for our attention. We’ve allowed ourselves to be conditioned to feel the need to respond and react to those things. The trouble is, if we spend our entire day reacting to what comes our way, we will never have the time or opportunity to create the life God has intended us to live.

A reactive life tends to be a shallow one. Roots can’t grow deep when you are constantly uprooting them, flitting from place to place and task to task. In his book, “The Jesus Centered Life”, author Rick Lawrence writes, “Our mounting lack of depth makes us reactive by default and eats away at our foundation, making it easier to topple… it’s not possible to speed date our way to a more intimate relationship with Jesus and others.” Until we stop living a reactive life, we cannot develop a closer relationship with Jesus, and we will never invest the necessary time in the lives of others. Too many distractions keep us from collaborating with Christ on His mission, which is exactly what Satan intends.

To stop living a reactive life requires a lot of work. We have to recondition ourselves to not respond to every issue, problem, or shiny object which invades our path. Instead, the key is to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. Ask Him what you can help Him create today. What new opportunities, methodologies, artistic works, or friendships might He enable you to create today? What new thing can you be a part of to help further His Kingdom and His mission? As Paul wrote, “The old has passed away and the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)” He is constantly creating, and He wants you to join Him. Stop living a reactive life. Let’s do a new thing. Let’s join our Creator God in building His Kingdom and His people today.